Cover: Belle and the Dragon

Continuing our tour of the online archives of the British Library, this issue’s cover is an illustration from Belle and the Dragon: An Elfin Comedy, a children’s book published in 1894 and written by none other than the famous Occultist, A E Waite (he of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck).

The artist is Evelyn Stuart-Menteath, on whom the character of the dragon is also apparently based. Other characters represent Waite’s wife, Ada, and his true love, her sister, Dora.

The title of the story is a play on an apocryphal section of the Book of Daniel, ‘Bel and the Dragon’, in which the prophet tries to convince the King of Babylon of the foolishness of worshipping graven idols.

As usual, an unadulterated version of the image is available below.